We have been told that a person in a Nursing Home paying DAP and still has a vacant family Home, that unless they have a resident living there Government forces them to sell it after 24 months.
Can find no reference to this in My Gov Aged Care Info/fact sheets etc.
Can anybod shed light on this - it would be appreciated, thanks.
"This is a perfectly normal situation. A person may have property left over after moving into a nursing home and have to pay a Dap or other bill. There is nothing strange about that. However, sometimes it is better to sell the property. I had to take care of my grandmother, who lived until she was 94. My mother died and my father couldn’t do it because of health problems"So for several years she lived with us, we rented her apartment, and that money went to pay for a personal caregiver who took care of her. However, when she was diagnosed with a physical illness, we had to move her to a nursing home and sell her apartment to we buy houses faster. That money went to her medical treatment and funeral expenses.
This is a perfectly normal situation. A person may have property left over after moving into a nursing home and have to pay a Dap or other bill. There is nothing strange about that. However, sometimes it is better to sell the property. I had to take care of my grandmother, who lived until she was 94. My mother died and my father couldn’t do it because of health problems
Hi Webby048,
You will be glad to know that I don’t believe that is true. When a person goes into a nursing home, that person has a choice how they pay the accommodation cost. They can pay it as a lump sum (a RAD), they can pay it as a daily fee (DAP) or indeed a combination of the two. This is entirely a private matter.
What I think you may be mixing up is how the ownership of a home can be taken into account with the Means Tested Fee. If a person owns a house and no one is living in it, then it is seen as an asset. This means that it will be included in the Means Tested Fee meaning that the Means Tested Fee may be higher than if the house was not included. If a couple live in a house and one of the couple moves into a nursing home and one of them is still living in the house, then the spouse is viewed as a protected person. That means that for as long as the spouse is living there, the value of the house wont be included as an asset.siprotected person. It could be a child that has been caring full time of the person whos moved into aged care for the last 2 years or a carer who has been caring full time for the person whos moved into aged care for the last 5 years. Another thing to keep in mind is that even if the value of the house is included in the Means Tested Fee, it is capped at $165,271.20, so if the persons house is $945,000 then its capped value will be $165,271.20.
You can read more about the 4 different types of nursing home fees here:
You can read more about how the family home is assessed here:
So all in all, no one can force you to sell the family home.
I hope that clears things up.the agedcare101 team